Published: 26 May 2026 - Watch on YouTube
Hello everyone, and welcome back. It is the 25th of May, a bank holiday Monday, and I thought it was the perfect moment for an end of May garden tour. There is so much in bloom right now that I could not resist walking you round. The catch is that we are in the middle of an extreme heatwave, so this is a slightly sweaty tour, and I will try to keep it moving before my camera and I both overheat.
We started in the little border right in front of my shed, where the foxglove is in full bloom and the roses have simply exploded over the past week or so. This is really their second flush. The first blooms came out while it was still raining and very cold, and these are the second flash of blossom on the shrubs. The deep fuchsia one is Gabriel Oak, and next to it is Gertrude Jekyll, which smells so lovely you can catch it just walking by.
The verbena is now about the same height as I am, and I am 5 foot 5. What I love about it is that I cut it right down to ground level back in January, and here it is again. These plants are in their third season, all grown from seed. The little creeping thyme has also flowered for the first time this year. I very nearly cut it back over winter during my maintenance on this border, but it still had a lot of greenery on it so I left it, and I am so glad I did.
You will spot all my young seedlings and plants laid out in the border, and that is because of the weather. Just a week ago the nights were dropping to about 4 degrees for hours at a time, so it was far too cold to plant anything out. Then Friday arrived and brought this extreme heatwave with it. The shed thermometer was reading around 38 degrees while I filmed, and at one point my camera overheated and shut down completely, so I had to take it indoors to cool off.
You might wonder why I have not planted everything out given it is already Monday. The honest answer is that my husband and I had a pre-planned weekend away in Somerset, two days and two nights, and it was lovely. We even went through Cheddar Gorge, which is very impressive but was pure chaos with the crowds. So the tomatoes and everything else are going out this week rather than today, and I still need to get the allotment beds ready too. We will get there.
There are a couple of new additions. We finally edged this border properly, and right behind it my husband has built me a proper tomato trellis. I have needed a solid structure for years, because I grow a lot of cherry tomatoes here and my old bamboo canes and flimsy supports always collapsed under the weight of the full plants. This one is sturdy. It needs a bit more support running through it so I can hang more plants in between, but that will be sorted within days.
The other big project is a watering system, which is something I asked for after years of worrying about who would keep the garden alive while we are on holiday. My husband has already done the border with the trees and the flower border, and both are working. We have tested them, so this year the holiday watering headache should finally be behind me.
At the front of the house the Lady of Shalott roses are blooming. I planted six of them as bare root, and I also took some cuttings two years ago and popped them in the ground. Two years on I have two free plants flowering for the first time, which feels like a real win. The Pilgrim, a climbing rose, has gone absolutely wild with the sheer amount of flowers on it.
In the flower border, Port Sunlight, the salmon orangey one, is carrying the most flower heads it has ever had, and Queen of Sweden has opened in that soft light pink. Funnily enough Queen of Sweden is scented, but I can never smell mine. My husband can. When we were in Somerset we walked past a garden full of roses just like it and I could smell those perfectly, which he found very funny. David Austin roses are not cheap, but I do think they are worth every penny.
The best news is that the dahlias have come through. Every single one I checked is alive, including Sweet Natalie, Duskia, which is already coming into flower, Josie, Labelle Epoque, and Wizard of Oz and Burlesque, both clearly alive. Even the one I had divided in winter and thought I had lost is sitting happily in its pot. I did spot a lot of woodlice around one tuber and had a small panic, but I will deal with that off camera. The rudbeckia, on the other hand, still has not come up, and I am not sure why.
The alliums are the showstoppers just now, standing well over 2 metres tall, far higher than me even when I stand on the border. Erigeron is doing its usual reliable thing, and honestly if you do not have any in your garden you really should. The rose campion opened over the weekend, and my Welsh onion is about to flower, which I am going to let it do because I think it will look wonderful.
The blueberry bush is loaded, the Gala apple is setting fruit all over, and the Conference pear has good trusses coming on. A fair few apples dropped, but there was so much on the branches that we are very happy with what has stayed. My eucalyptus is clearly loving the heat with lots of fresh new growth. Sadly not everything is thriving. My broad beans went in far too late after sitting in pots for too long, so they look weak and I am not expecting much of a crop, and the second batch and the peas are probably goners.
I have made a couple of changes too. I moved a hosta to fill a gap next to the brunnera, now that a second blueberry has taken its old spot, and it balances that corner nicely. I also finally took out the jasmine, which had become an eyesore, crowding the tree and spreading into borders where I did not want it. The moment it was gone the whole area looked neat and tidy. My four year old hydrangea in a pot is covered in flower heads, and the little one I feared had died over winter has bounced back after I kept watering it.
I kept this one short so the camera, and I, could survive the heat. It really is very hot, but I am not complaining, because I love it. The next videos will be all about planting out at last, tomatoes and the new bean trellis here in the kitchen garden, and cucumbers, pumpkins, squashes, more beans, leeks and beetroots down at the allotment once the beds are ready. If you would like to see some clips from our Somerset weekend, do let me know in the comments and I will happily put a little video together. Thank you so much for joining me, and I will see you in the next one.
Tags: #EndOfMayGardenTour #UKHeatwave #DavidAustinRoses #DahliaSeason #WestSussexGarden #MyWindyGarden